The Ramones began taking shape in early 1974 when Cummings and Colvin invited Hyman to join them in a band. The initial lineup featured Colvin on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Cummings on lead guitar, and Hyman on drums. Colvin, who soon switched from rhythm guitar to bass, was the first to adopt the name "Ramone", calling himself Dee Dee Ramone. He was inspired by Paul McCartney's use of the pseudonym Paul Ramon during his Silver Beatles days.[18][19] Dee Dee convinced the other members to take on the name and came up with the idea of calling the band the Ramones.[20] Hyman and Cummings became Joey and Johnny Ramone.[20]

A friend of the band, Monte A. Melnick (later their tour manager), helped to arrange rehearsal time for them at Manhattan's Performance Studios, where he worked. Johnny's former bandmate Erdelyi was set to become their manager. Soon after the band was formed, Dee Dee realized that he could not sing and play his bass guitar simultaneously; with Erdelyi's encouragement, Joey became the band's new lead singer.[18] Dee Dee would continue, however, to count off each song's tempo with his signature rapid-fire shout of "1-2-3-4!" Joey soon similarly realized that he could not sing and play drums simultaneously and left the position of drummer. While auditioning prospective replacements, Erdelyi would often take to the drums and demonstrate how to play the songs. It became apparent that he was able to perform the group's music better than anyone else, and he joined the band as Tommy Ramone.[21]

The Ramones played before an audience for the first time on March 30, 1974, at Performance Studios.[2] The songs they played were very fast and very short; most clocked in at under two minutes. Around this time, a new music scene was emerging in New York centered around two clubs in downtown Manhattan—Max's Kansas City and, more famously, CBGB (usually referred to as CBGB's). The Ramones made their CBGB debut on August 16, 1974.[22]Legs McNeil, who cofounded Punk magazine the following year, later described the impact of that performance: "They were all wearing these black leather jackets. And they counted off this song ... and it was just this wall of noise ... . They looked so striking. These guys were not hippies. This was something completely new."[23]

The band swiftly became regulars at the club, playing there seventy-four times by the end of the year. After garnering considerable attention for their performances—which averaged about seventeen minutes from beginning to end—the group was signed to a recording contract in late 1975 by Seymour Stein of Sire Records. Stein's wife, Linda Stein, had seen the band play at CBGB; she would later co-manage them along with Danny Fields.[24] By this time, the Ramones were recognized as leaders of the new scene that was increasingly being referred to as "punk".[25][26] The group's unusual frontman had a lot to do with their impact. As Dee Dee explained, "All the other singers [in New York] were copying David Johansen [of the New York Dolls], who was copying Mick Jagger ... . But Joey was unique, totally unique."[27]

Spearheading punk: 1976–1977

The title of the Ramones' debut single, writes critic Steve Huey, is a "nice encapsulation of the group's aesthetic: simple, bouncy, pre-British Invasion rock & roll played at top volume and twice the speed. Blaring the same three chords for most of its duration, the song was rock at its most basic".[28]

The Ramones recorded their debut album, front cover photograph of the band was taken by Roberta Bayley, a photographer for Punk magazine.[33]Punk, which was largely responsible for codifying the term for the scene emerging around CBGB, ran a cover story on the Ramones in its third issue, the same month as the record's release.[29][34]

The Ramones' debut LP was greeted by rock critics with glowing reviews. The Village Voice '​s Robert Christgau wrote, "I love this record—love it – even though I know these boys flirt with images of brutality (Nazi especially) ... . For me, it blows everything else off the radio".[35] In Rolling Stone, Paul Nelson described it as "constructed almost entirely of rhythm tracks of an exhilarating intensity rock & roll has not experienced since its earliest days." Characterizing the band as "authentic American primitives whose work has to be heard to be understood", he declared, "It is time popular music followed the other arts in honoring its primitives."[36]Newsday '​s Wayne Robbins simply anointed the Ramones as "the best young rock 'n' roll band in the known universe."[37]

However, despite Sire's high hopes for it,[38]Ramones was not a commercial success, reaching only number 111 on the [41]T-Rex leader Marc Bolan was in attendance at the Roundhouse show and was invited on stage.[42][43] Their Roundhouse appearance and a club date the following night—where the band met members of the Sex Pistols and the Clash—helped galvanize the burgeoning UK punk rock scene.[4] The Flamin' Groovies/Ramones double bill was successfully reprised at the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles the following month, fueling the punk scene there as well. The Ramones were becoming an increasingly popular live act—a Toronto performance in September energized yet another growing punk scene.[44]

Ramones in 1977

Their next two albums, Leave Home and Rocket to Russia, were released in 1977. Both were produced by Tommy and Tony Bongiovi, the second cousin of Jon Bon Jovi.[45]Leave Home met with even less chart success than Ramones, though it did include "Pinhead", which became one of the band's signature songs with its chanted refrain of "Gabba gabba hey!" Leave Home also included a fast-paced cover of the oldie "California Sun", written by Henry Glover & Morris Levy, and originally recorded by Joe Jones.[46]Rocket to Russia was the band's highest-charting album to date, reaching number 49 on the Billboard 200.[47] In Rolling Stone, critic Dave Marsh called it "the best American rock & roll of the year".[48] The album also featured the first Ramones single to enter the Billboard charts (albeit only as high as number 81): "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker". The follow-up single, "Rockaway Beach", reached number 66 – the highest any Ramones single would ever reach in America. On December 31, 1977 the Ramones recorded It's Alive, a live concert double album, at the Rainbow Theatre, London, which was released in April 1979 (the title is a reference to the 1974 horror film of the same name).[49]

Recordings turn more pop: 1978–1983

Tommy, tired of touring, left the band in early 1978. He continued as the Ramones' record producer under his birth name of Erdelyi. His position as drummer was filled by Marc Bell, who had been a member of the early 1970s hard rock band Dust, Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys,[50] and the pioneering punk group Richard Hell & the Voidoids.[51] Bell became Marky Ramone. Later that year, the band released their fourth studio album, and first with Marky, Road to Ruin. The album, co-produced by Tommy with Ed Stasium, included some new sounds such as acoustic guitar, several ballads, and the band's first two recorded songs longer than three minutes. It failed to reach the Billboard Top 100. However, "I Wanna Be Sedated", which appeared both on the album and as a single, would become one of the band's best-known songs.[52] The artwork on the album's cover was done by Punk magazine cofounder John Holmstrom.[53]

After the band's movie debut in Roger Corman's Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979), renowned producer Phil Spector became interested in the Ramones and produced their 1980 album End of the Century. During the recording sessions in Los Angeles, Spector held Johnny at gunpoint, forcing him to repeatedly play a riff.[54] Though it was to be the highest-charting album in the band's history—reaching number 44 in the United States and number 14 in Great Britain—Johnny made clear that he favored the band's more aggressive punk material: "End of the Century was just watered-down Ramones. It's not the real Ramones."[55] This stance was also conveyed by the title and track selection of the compilation album Johnny later oversaw, Loud, Fast Ramones: Their Toughest Hits. Despite these reservations, Johnny did concede that some of Spector's work with the band had merit, saying "It really worked when he got to a slower song like 'Danny Says'—the production really worked tremendously. 'Rock 'N' Roll Radio' is really good. For the harder stuff, it didn't work as well."[56] The syrupy, string-laden Ronettes cover "Baby, I Love You" released as a single, became the band's biggest hit in Great Britain, reaching number 8 on the charts.[57]

Joey and Dee Dee Ramone in concert, 1983

Pleasant Dreams, the band's sixth album, was released in 1981. It continued the trend established by End of the Century, taking the band further from the raw punk sound of its early records. As described by Trouser Press, the album, produced by Graham Gouldman of UK pop act 10cc, moved the Ramones "away from their pioneering minimalism into heavy metal territory".[58] Johnny would contend in retrospect that this direction was a record company decision, a continued futile attempt to get airplay on American radio.[56][1] While Pleasant Dreams reached number 58 on the U.S. chart, its two singles failed to register at all.[59]

Subterranean Jungle, produced by Ritchie Cordell and Glen Kolotkin, was released in 1983.[60] According to Trouser Press, it brought the band "back to where they once belonged: junky '60s pop adjusted for current tastes", which among other things meant "easing off the breakneck rhythm that was once Ramones dogma."[58] Billy Rogers, who had performed with Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, played drums on the album's second single, a cover of the Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today".[61]Subterranean Jungle peaked at number 83 in the United States—it would be the last album by the band to crack the Billboard Top 100.[62][63] In 2002, Rhino Records released a new version of it with seven bonus tracks.[64]

Shuffling members: 1983–1989

After the release of Subterranean Jungle, Marky was fired from the band due to his alcoholism.[65] He was replaced by Richard Reinhardt, who adopted the name Richie Ramone. Joey Ramone remarked that “[Richie] saved the band as far as I’m concerned. He’s the greatest thing to happen to the Ramones. He put the spirit back in the band.”[66] Richie is notable as the only Ramones drummer to sing lead vocals on Ramones songs, including "(You) Can’t Say Anything Nice” as well as the unreleased “Elevator Operator". Richie’s vocal contributions were appreciated by Joey Ramone: "Richie's very talented and he's very diverse ... He really strengthened the band a hundred percent because he sings backing tracks, he sings lead, and he sings with Dee Dee's stuff. In the past, it was always just me singing for the most part."[67] Richie was also the only drummer to be the sole composer of Ramones songs including their hit “Somebody Put Something in My Drink” as well as "Smash You,” "Humankind,” "I'm Not Jesus,” "I Know Better Now" and "(You) Can't Say Anything Nice". Joey Ramone supported Richie’s songwriting contributions: “I encouraged Richie to write songs. I figured it would make him feel more a part of the group, because we never let anybody else write our songs.”[68][69] Richie’s composition, "Somebody Put Something in My Drink," remained a staple in the Ramones set list until their last show in 1996 and was included in the album Loud, Fast Ramones: Their Toughest Hits which is composed of songs hand picked by Johnny Ramone as some of the Ramones' best works.[70][71] The 8 song bonus disc, The Ramones Smash You: Live '85, is also named after Richie’s song “Smash You”.

The first album the Ramones recorded with Richie was Too Tough to Die in 1984, with Tommy Erdelyi and Ed Stasium returning as producers. The album marked a shift to something like the band's original sound. In the description of Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the "rhythms are back up to jackhammer speed and the songs are down to short, terse statements."[72]

Over a "power-pop beat and melodic hooks galore", writes David Corn, Joey "snarls" the beginning of the refrain—"Bonzo goes to Bitburg/then goes out for a cup of tea/As I watched it on TV/somehow it really bothered me".[73] In contrast, Salon.com arts editor Bill Wyman writes of "Joey's pained, pleading voice".[74]

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The band's main release of 1985 was the British single "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg"; though it was available in the United States only as an import, it was played widely on American college radio.[75] The song was written, primarily by Joey, in protest of Ronald Reagan's visit to a German military cemetery where SS members were buried.[76] Retitled "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)", the song appeared on the band's ninth studio album, Animal Boy (1986). Produced by Jean Beauvoir, formerly a member of the Plasmatics, the album was characterized by a Rolling Stone reviewer as "nonstop primal fuzz pop".[77] Making it his pick for "album of the week", New York Times critic Jon Pareles wrote that the Ramones "speak up for outcasts and disturbed individuals".[78]

The following year the band recorded their last album with Richie, Halfway to Sanity, produced by Daniel Rey. Richie left in August 1987, upset that after being in the band for four years, the other members would still not give him a share of the money they made selling T-shirts.[79] Richie was replaced by Clem Burke from Blondie, which was disbanded at the time. According to Johnny, the performances with Burke – who adopted the name Elvis Ramone – were a disaster. He was fired after two performances because his drumming could not keep up with the rest of the band.[79] Marky, now clean and sober, returned.[20]

Dee Dee left the band as they began recording their eleventh studio album, 1989's Brain Drain; the bass parts were done by Daniel Rey and the Dictators' Andy Shernoff; co-produced by Beauvoir, Rey, and Bill Laswell.[80] He was replaced by Christopher Joseph Ward (C.J. Ramone), who performed with the band until they disbanded. Dee Dee initially pursued a brief career as a rapper under the name Dee Dee King. He quickly returned to punk rock and formed several bands, in much the same vein as the Ramones, for whom he also continued to write songs.[80]

Final years: 1990–1996

After more than a decade and a half at Sire Records, the Ramones moved to a new label, Radioactive Records. Their first album for the label was 1992's Mondo Bizarro, which reunited them with producer Ed Stasium.[81]Acid Eaters, consisting entirely of cover songs, came out the following year.[82] In 1993 the Ramones were featured in the animated television series The Simpsons, providing music and voices for animated versions of themselves in the episode "Rosebud".[83] Executive producer David Mirkin described the Ramones as "gigantic, obsessive Simpsons fans."

In 1995 the Ramones released ¡Adios Amigos!, their fourteenth studio album, and announced that they planned to disband if it was not successful.[84][85] Its sales were unremarkable, garnering it just two weeks on the lower end of the Billboard chart.[86] The band spent late 1995 on what was promoted as a farewell tour. However, they accepted an offer to appear in the sixth Lollapalooza festival, which toured around the United States during the following summer.[87] After the Lollapalooza tour's conclusion, the Ramones played their final show on 6 August 1996 at the Palace in Hollywood. A recording of the concert was later released on video and CD as We're Outta Here! In addition to a reappearance by Dee Dee, the show featured several guests including Motörhead's Lemmy, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, and Rancid's Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen.[3]

Aftermath and deaths

On 20 July 1999 Dee Dee, Johnny, Joey, Tommy, Marky, and C.J. appeared together at the Virgin Megastore in New York City for an autograph signing. This was the last occasion on which the original four members of the group appeared together. Joey, who had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 1995, died of the illness on 15 April 2001, in New York.[4][88]

On March 18, 2002 the Ramones were inducted into the Green Day played "Teenage Lobotomy" and "Blitzkrieg Bop" as a tribute, demonstrating the Ramones' continuing influence on later rock musicians. The ceremony was one of Dee Dee's last public appearances; on 5 June 2002, two months later, he was found at his Hollywood home, dead from a heroin overdose.[5]

On 30 November 2003 New York City unveiled a sign designating East 2nd Street at the corner of Bowery as Joey Ramone Place. The singer lived on East 2nd for a time, and the sign is near the former Bowery site of CBGB.[89] The documentary film End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones came out in 2004. Johnny, who had been privately battling prostate cancer, died on 15 September 2004 in Los Angeles, shortly after the film's release.[6] On the same day as Johnny's death, the world's first Ramones Museum opened its doors to the public. Located in Berlin, Germany, the museum features more than 300 items of memorabilia, including a pair of stage-worn jeans from Johnny, a stage-worn glove from Joey, Marky's sneakers, and C.J.'s stage-worn bass strap.[90]

The Ramones were inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2007.[91] That October saw the release of a DVD set containing concert footage of the band: It's Alive 1974-1996 includes 118 songs from 33 performances over the span of the group's career.[92] In February 2011 the group was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Drummers Tommy, Marky, and Richie attended the ceremony.[12][13] Marky declared, "This is amazing. I never expected this. I'm sure Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee would never have expected this."[12] Richie noted that it was the first time ever that all three drummers were under the same roof, and mused that he couldn't "help thinking that [Joey] is watching us right now with a little smile on his face behind his rose-colored glasses."[13]

The final original member, Tommy Ramone, died on 11 July 2014 after a battle with bile duct cancer.[93]

Conflicts between members

Tensions between Joey and Johnny colored much of the Ramones' career. The pair were politically antagonistic, Joey being a liberal and Johnny a conservative. Their personalities also clashed: Johnny, who spent two years in military school, lived by a code of self-discipline,[94] while Joey struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder and alcoholism.[95][96] In the early 1980s, Johnny "stole" Joey's girlfriend Linda Daniele, (who later became Linda Ramone), whom he later married. As a consequence, despite performing together for years afterward, Joey and Johnny stopped speaking to each other.[6] Johnny did not call Joey before the latter's death in 2001, but said in the documentary End of the Century that he was depressed for "the whole week" after the singer died.[79]

Aside from this central conflict, Dee Dee's bipolar disorder and repeated relapses into drug addiction also caused significant strains.[97] Tommy left the band partly in reaction to being "physically threatened by Johnny, treated with contempt by Dee Dee, and all but ignored by Joey".[98] As new members joined, payment methods and image representation became matters of serious dispute.[99] In 1997, Marky and Joey got into a fight about their respective drinking habits on the Howard Stern radio show.[100]

Style

Musical style

Cultural critic Anders Johannsson uses this 1977 single as an example of how most Ramones songs "work in the same way: the same hammering on the drums, the same distorted guitars, the same howling of an extremely short text, in a simple tune with an even simpler chorus".[101]

With just four chords and one manic tempo, New York's Ramones blasted open the clogged arteries of mid-'70s rock, reanimating the music. Their genius was to recapture the short/simple aesthetic from which pop had strayed, adding a caustic sense of trash-culture humor and minimalist rhythm guitar sound.[105]

On stage, the band adopted a focused approach directly intended to increase the audience's concert experience. Johnny's instructions to C.J. when preparing for his first live performances with the group were to play facing the audience, to stand with the bass slung low between spread legs, and to walk forward to the front of stage at the same time as he did. Johnny was not a fan of guitarists who performed facing their drummer, amplifier, or other band members.[108]

Visual imagery

The Ramones' art and visual imagery complemented the themes of their music and performance. The band members adopted a uniform look of long hair, leather jackets, T-shirts, torn jeans, and sneakers. This fashion emphasized minimalism, which was a powerful influence on the New York punk scene of the 1970s and reflected the band's short, simple songs.[109] Tommy Ramone recalled that, both musically and visually, "we were influenced by comic books, movies, the Andy Warhol scene, and avant-garde films. I was a big Mad Magazine fan myself."[109]

The band's logo was created by New York City artist Arturo Vega together with the Ramones. Arturo was a longtime friend who had allowed Joey and Dee Dee to move into his loft.[110] Vega produced the band's T-shirts, their main source of income, basing most of the images on a black-and-white self-portrait photograph he had taken of his American bald eagle belt buckle which had appeared on the back sleeve of the Ramones' first album.[111] He was inspired to create the band's logo after a trip to Washington, D.C.:

I saw them as the ultimate all-American band. To me, they reflected the American character in general—an almost childish innocent aggression ... . I thought, 'The Great Seal of the President of the United States' would be perfect for the Ramones, with the eagle holding arrows—to symbolize strength and the aggression that would be used against whomever dares to attack us—and an olive branch, offered to those who want to be friendly. But we decided to change it a little bit. Instead of the olive branch, we had an apple tree branch, since the Ramones were American as apple pie. And since Johnny was such a baseball fanatic, we had the eagle hold a baseball bat instead of the [Great Seal]'s arrows.[111]

The scroll in the eagle's beak originally read "Look out below", but this was soon changed to "Hey ho let's go" after the opening lyrics of the band's first single, "Blitzkrieg Bop". The arrowheads on the shield came from a design on a polyester shirt Vega had bought. The name "Ramones" was spelled out in block capitals above the logo using plastic stick-on letters.[24] Where the presidential emblem read "Seal of the President of the United States" clockwise in the border around the eagle, Vega instead placed the pseudonyms of the four band members: Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee, and Tommy. Over the years the names in the border would change as the band's lineup fluctuated.[112]

Influence

Johnny Ramone in concert, 1977

The Ramones had a broad and lasting influence on the development of popular music. Music historian Jon Savage writes of their debut album that "it remains one of the few records that changed pop forever."[113] As described by Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, "The band's first four albums set the blueprint for punk, especially American punk and hardcore, for the next two decades."[114]Trouser Press's Robbins and Isler similarly write that the Ramones "not only spearheaded the original new wave/punk movement, but also drew the blueprint for subsequent hardcore punk bands".[105] Punk journalist Phil Strongman writes, "In purely musical terms, The Ramones, in attempting to re-create the excitement of pre-Dolby rock, were to cast a huge shadow—they had fused a blueprint for much of the indie future."[25] Writing for Slate in 2001, Douglas Wolk described the Ramones as "easily the most influential group of the last 30 years."[115]

The Ramones' debut album had an outsized effect relative to its modest sales. According to Generation X bassist Tony James, "Everybody went up three gears the day they got that first Ramones album. Punk rock—that rama-lama super fast stuff—is totally down to the Ramones. Bands were just playing in an MC5 groove until then."[116] The Ramones' two July 1976 shows, like their debut album, are seen as having a significant impact on the style of many of the newly formed British punk acts—as one observer put it, "instantly nearly every band speeded up".[117] The Ramones' first British concert, at London's Roundhouse concert hall, was held on 4 July 1976, the United States Bicentennial. The Sex Pistols were playing in Sheffield that evening, supported by the Clash, making their public debut. The next night, members of both bands attended the Ramones' gig at the Dingwall's club. Ramones manager Danny Fields recalls a conversation between Johnny Ramone and Clash bassist Paul Simonon (which he mislocates at the Roundhouse): "Johnny asked him, 'What do you do? Are you in a band?' Paul said, 'Well, we just rehearse. We call ourselves the Clash but we're not good enough.' Johnny said, 'Wait till you see us—we stink, we're lousy, we can't play. Just get out there and do it.'"[118] Another band whose members saw the Ramones perform, the Damned, played their first show two days later. The central fanzine of the early UK punk scene, Sniffin' Glue, was named after the song "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue", which appeared on the debut LP.[119]

The band members were also individually influential. Johnny Ramone was named Time's "10 Greatest Electric-Guitar Players" in 2003.[141] That same year, he was number 16 on the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" list in Rolling Stone.[142]

Shonen Knife, an all-woman trio band from Osaka, Japan, was formed in 1981 as a direct result of founder-lead singer-guitarist Naoko Yamano's instant infatuation with the music of the Ramones. In 2012, to observe the band's 30th anniversary, Shonen Knife released Osaka Ramones, which featured thirteen Ramones songs covered by the band.[147]

Timeline

Note: The bars indicate the release of the studio albums, not their recording. An album release occurring in the same relative time period of a band member change usually indicates that the album was recorded with the previous member, and not his replacement.

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